MODELING HOT GAS FLOW IN THE LOW-LUMINOSITY ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS OF NGC 3115

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 782; no. 2; pp. 1 - 14
• Main Authors: Shcherbakov, Roman V, Wong, Ka-Wah, Irwin, Jimmy A, Reynolds, Christopher S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 20-02-2014
• Subjects: ACCRETION DISKS; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; BLACK HOLES; COLLISIONS; Cooling; DENSITY; ELECTRONS; EMISSION; EXPLOSIONS; FEEDBACK; Feeding; Fittings; GALAXIES; GALAXY NUCLEI; GAS FLOW; Gravitation; HYDRODYNAMICS; INJECTION; LUMINOSITY; MASS; SIMULATION; STAR CLUSTERS; STARS; THERMAL CONDUCTION; X RADIATION
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/782/2/103

Based on the dynamical black hole (BH) mass estimates, NGC 3115 hosts the closest billion solar mass BH. In this paper we connect the processes in the nuclear star cluster with the feeding of the supermassive BH. We model the hot gas flow sustained by the injection of matter and energy from the stars and supernova explosions. We incorporate electron heat conduction as the small-scale feedback mechanism, the gravitational pull of the stellar mass, cooling, and Coulomb collisions. Fitting simulated X-ray emission to the spatially and spectrally resolved observed data, we find the best-fitting solutions with chi super(2)/dof = 1.00 for dof = 236 both with and without conduction. This density profile is determined in the feeding region 0".5-10" as an interplay of four processes and effects: (1) the radius-dependent mass injection, (2) the effect of the galactic gravitational potential, (3) the accretion flow onset at r [lap] 1", and (4) the outflow at r [gap] 1".